Getting back in--- deep

[BigDave]

Boiling water and Kalk paste. Since there's nothing in the tank, it should be easy for me to move rocks around and kill as needed.

I'll spend quite some time doing this each weekend while the tank waits for the first inhabitants. Then I'll try the peppermint shrimp for continuous cleaning. I had good luck with those once before, but I found that they worked best on smaller ones. You want to kill as many as you can and then let the peppermint shrimp keep them from popping up elsewhere.

I wanted to try the Berghia, but I've read a lot of mixed results on those. It looks like they'd do good at helping with the initial kill phase, but then they end up dying once they're all gone.

 

[zachxlutz]

Sounds like you have a good plan of attack. I started with dead rock hoping to avoid pests and so far we're in the clear. I really don't envy you digging around there blasting those things but it sounds like you'll knock them out easily.

 

[BigDave]

Ended up using lemon juice. It was cool to see the pH dive afterwards. I've killed about half so far.

I keep finding more hitchhikers on the rock.

The latest is a pair of bristle worms.

https://youtu.be/7ldANxC7fUA

The first wave of algae has started. Unfortunately my test kit doesn't get here until Tuesday.


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[BigDave]

Had a great weekend getting a lot of work done on the stand. I got all 3 sides built, trimmed, and started sanding. I'll work on getting them painted throughout the week. The building on the tank should finally be done in a week or two.

The sides are made up of a 1 by frame that is faced on both sides with 1/4" plywood. I used Oak on the outside and birch on the inside. I embedded 1.5"x1/8" circle magnets in the top frame rail of each side. The long sides have 3 and the front has 1. Each magnet has 19lbs of pull. Quite a bit less going through the 1/4" ply, but still enough to hold the sides onto the stand. The sides make a very satisfying 'thump' when it pulls to.

I made a video showing the sound difference with the sides off and on. It's about half the volume. The tank was pretty quiet to begin with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oku2IRICnJU

And here's the first FTS. There's still a bit more silt to filter out of the water column, but it's slowly going down. It kinda sucks that I'll be stirring it all back up next week when I get the last big rock and start doing my aquascape. With the tank being a cube, and being visible on 3 sides, I'm planning on just doing a big central mound.

 

[BigDave]

My Salifert test kits came in on Tuesday.

Ammonia .25
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0

The two N's were hard to read, but there definitely wasn't any color in them. From the looks of the stuff showing up on the rocks, it looks like I'm well into the cycle process.

Just working on finishing up the tank stand at this point.

 

[serenity]

Looks great!!


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[BigDave]

The tank is doing pretty good. I stirred up a bunch of sand moving rocks around, so the wavemaker clogged up again. I'm going to have to remember to shut that thing down and the recirculation pump when working on the rock work.

I picked up my first batch of inhabitants. I put 10 snails in the tank. It's not very much, but they seem to be doing a good job on the algae starting to show up.

I'll wait another few weeks and pick up some peppermint shrimp. Right now I'm still combatting the aptasia using lemon juice. None of the ones I've shot have come back.

 

[pszemol]

Great thread, BigDave. Do you have a plan of action to populate your DSB with critters?

 

[BigDave]

The live rock I added was pretty well seeded. I was looking in the tank after dark and there were copepods walking around that I could see. They should take off once I get some other animals in there.

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[pszemol]

Copepods are great zooplankton and it is always good to have them.
But they alone will not do much to animate the top 1/4-1/2" of the sand bed.
You need to have larger animals doing it: 1" long spaghetti worms, 1/2" diameter brittle stars, burrowing cerith snails, etc...

I am reviving a neglected 24x24x20" Oceanic reef cube of mine and I am on the market for such animals now...

 

[BigDave]

Yes. There's plenty of those in the rocks too. They'll make their way to the sand eventually. I also plan on having engineering gobies and a yellow headed sleeper goby.

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[BigDave]

All the rock is in the tank now. I'll leave it this way for a little bit and decide if this is my final aquascape or not.

 

[BigDave]

The build is finally complete. I got the last of the painting done over the weekend. I would like to get some paint on some of the white plumbing in the tank, but I can do that at anytime at this point.

 

[zachxlutz]

Looks great with the painted stand and hood. Coral and fish coming soon?

 

[BigDave]

Looks great with the painted stand and hood. Coral and fish coming soon?

Probably start stocking it in January. Spending most of the money this month on Christmas (including my 3d printer).

 

[zachxlutz]

Probably start stocking it in January. Spending most of the money this month on Christmas (including my 3d printer).

Very cool. Excited to see what you work up with it.

 

[BigDave]

Found a negative to the water being stored outside... with the 14 F degree temperature we had over the weekend, the fresh water storage tank is frozen solid!

I have enough in containers inside to last until it's warm again outside, but I definitely need to rig up the recirculation pump to circulate the freshwater. That way the next time it drops before freezing, I can keep the water flowing so it won't freeze. I don't think there's a need to put a heater in there; just to keep the water churning.

 

[dmarkham]

Yes it got cold quick this weekend.

 

[BigDave]

Added the first fish last week and had my first casualty over the weekend.

I added the following:

* Citrinis Clown Goby
* Matted Filefish
* Hermit Crab (Named crabby by the daughter)
* 3 peppermint shrimp

The clown goby and the hermit crab were a bit of an impulse buy. I really wanted a yellow headed sleeper goby or bi-color blenny but the store didn't have any.

Over the weekend I found the matted filefish dead. I never really saw him eat, so I'm wondering if he starved.

The Citrinis has been eating both flake and frozen food. He's also taken a few pipe rides down to the sump. I finally got around to making a filter for the overflow to keep his happy arse in the display tank.

Citirins Clown Goby

Matted Filefish

Fixing the overflow

 

[BigDave]

There was a post floating around discussing water change setups. I decided to make a video of my process on how I do water changes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I76Dyaz9uA8